


In A Cage of Stone

by SanSanFanFan



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Canon Divergence, F/M, Invasion, Peril, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-03
Updated: 2014-12-03
Packaged: 2018-02-28 00:25:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2712218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SanSanFanFan/pseuds/SanSanFanFan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for Ladytp for the Livejournal Holiday Exchange, based on her prompt:</p><p>'Sansa and Sandor facing certain death (they think so), inspiring brutal honesty between them'</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Flight

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LadyTP](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyTP/gifts).



Sansa awoke to a curious sound, an odd discordant music she had never heard before. Slowly, wincing as she did, she crept from her bed and walked in bare feet to the large window, pulling back the drapes with arms that ached as she raised them. Then her breath caught in her throat, and she moistened her lips in a quick, nervous move. The Blackwater was on fire!  
  
The bright reds and oranges roared across the water itself, burning the King’s ships and traders alike. The music was the sigh of the fire itself as it billowed, it was the crackle of the hungry flames. And it was the screams of men!   
  
Her eyes could almost accept the fire, see it as kin to a hearth fire and fall, trancelike, into its dance as she had often done late at night in the Keep, sitting and supping as she remembered her home and saw it formed anew in the red light. But the dark shape above the flames… her mind rebelled from accepting what she saw. It could not be, it could not be! The thing twisted blackly above its destructive work, rolling through the air just like a swimmer would do in the lapping sea below it. A long black tail whipped behind it and vast wings fanned the flames that had poured from its maw. A dragon!  
  
Sansa whimpered and ran back to her bed, not caring at the protests of the bruises on her belly and her thighs. There, lying on the bed, was his white wool cloak, just as she had left it after pushing it aside to pad over to the window. She gathered it to her and wrapped herself in it, trying hard to ignore the glaring red light in her room and the cacophony from outside.  
  
But the noises only got louder, and Sansa realised in horror that some of the jarring sound now came from directly outside her chamber door. She trembled, wanting to run to check the locks, but afraid of leaving the small comfort of her bed. She heard voices, shouts and screams. And then two distinct voices, closer, just on the other side of her door!  
  
“Seems that we are of a like mind, dog.” That voice she knew immediately, because hearing it again reminded her of the deep bruises she wore from his beating of her just that day now gone. Ser Boros Blount!  
  
“So it seems.” A deeper voice rasped, and she knew it too. She shivered ever more.  
  
“We can share her if you want. But I did think to take her North, and her brother’ll pay more if she’s unbroken. Although, she can do things for us on the road. Things that don’t break her fucking maidenhead and lose us that gold-”  
  
There was a low yell, cut off quickly and replaced by a disturbing gurgling sound. Then her door was opened quickly, and shut again just as fast as the large figure in battered armour came in. She saw his sharp features as his eyes searched for her in the red light, finding her bundled shape on the bed straight away.  
  
“Take that fucking cloak off!” the Hound grabbed at her, ripping it from her and exposing her in her thin nightdress. She hugged her arms to herself, trying to cover herself.  
  
“Please, please don’t!” She looked up at him in the red orange light of the fires, and saw him covered over in dark blood. Ser Boros’ blood, if the dagger in his hand told her true.  
  
But he ignored her, his eyes being drawn to the fires raging on the water outside, and for a moment she thought he almost looked afraid. His arms were down at his sides, and the cloak dragged on the floor as though forgotten. When he did finally speak, she jumped a little as the silence was broken.  
  
“It’s all ending.” His voice was so very quiet as he stared into the flames, and she wasn’t certain if he intended her to respond.   
  
“Please?! What do you-?”  
  
“Stop your chirping! I need to bloody think!” He growled at her, coming back to the room and to himself, cleaning his dagger and sheathing it.  
  
“Did you, did you come to take me home?”  
  
She saw a sneer born on his face and then die just as quickly. “Could be.” He did not seem convinced of it, even though he had said the words.  
  
“Do you want gold? My brother-”  
  
He threw the white cloak away, casting it over a chair and turning his back on it. “We could go North. We’d have a fucking dragon at our backs, no doubt of that. Once the Targaryen cunt is done here.”  
  
His eyes roamed over her and she curled up even more on the bed.   
  
“You got a plain dress? None of that fancy finery they got you to wear here?”  
  
“I travelled South in something simple.”  
  
“Get it on. Be quick about it.” He sat heavily on the chair, crushing the cloak and moving his sword hilt into his palm. Watching her.  
  
She thought better of asking him to look away. Instead she clambered down from the bed, wincing slightly as her bruises complained, and then she busied herself looking through her gowns in the closet. The one she was thinking of was buried under the richer gowns of court and took her a moment to find. A large roaring noise shook the entire keep, and she shrieked.  
  
“Hurry up girl!” He was on his feet, peering at the window again. “Gods only know what that was. But the beast’s burnt the ships to keep the rats from fleeing, so perhaps it’ll come for the Keep next. It was built by fucking dragon riders, so it might stand up to it for a while.” He seemed to be talking more to himself than to her.   
  
She pulled the dress on and fussed with the laces, her trembling hands unable to tie them properly. Suddenly bigger fingers were pulling the laces tight and tying quick knots. Ugly large knots that bulged out from her sides, rather than craftily hid her laces as she normally wore them.   
  
“It’ll do. Come on girl!”   
  
He grabbed her arm and dragged her towards the door, pulling his sword from its sheath in one quick movement.   
  
“A cloak? I should take a cloak!” she looked back at the Kingsguard white wool cloak on the chair.  
  
“Leave that fucking thing! You might as well paint an archer’s target on yourself and call out to the fucking dragon!”   
  
“Where is the King?” She asked, suddenly realizing that she had not thought of him. Her betrothed. The one who had ordered her beaten just hours before this nightmare had begun. Or was it just another nightmare on top of others, she thought to herself, despairing.  
  
“The King’s fucked. All of Tywin’s get are. I saw Tommen and Myrcella being hurried through the cellars. Saw the fucking Imp up on Maekor’s holdfast, watching the dragon and the fire like a moon mad fool. Joffrey, well… fuck’im!”  
  
“Should you not have gone to him?” And not to me, she thought but did not say.  
  
“Hush now! We have to move fast and quiet through the keep.” He pulled her to him and yanked her through the door and out into the corridor, where Ser Boros’ body lay in a slick black pool of blood. Other bodies were nearby, red cloaks mostly, although she also saw the figure of Ilyn Payne, grimmer yet in death, a red cloak’s sword in his chest, wrenched out of their hands as he’d fought on until his end. That gave her little joy, which surprised her.  
  
“The rats are turning on each other”. He spat. “Found this mess when I came to- when I came for you.”  
  
Sansa carefully stepped over the bodies, but the hems of her dress swept through the blood.  
  
“Where should we go?” She whispered.  
  
“There’s lots of ways out of the Keep you can find if you walk the halls enough.” He kept his voice low as well. “Just stick close to my side, little bird.”   
  
She nodded, and he crept alongside the walls of the corridor, as alert as a hunting dog, his sword pointing out their way for her. The red light found them even here, streaming through the narrow windows and casting shadows of blood behind them. Occasionally a serving girl or page would run past, sight the Hound’s sword and carry on their fleeing passage. At one corner, the Hound grabbed her and they halted in the shadows as a trio of gold cloaks ran past. One of them had lost his helmet and was bleeding copiously from a wound on his face. If the ‘rats’ were truly fighting each other as he said, then whose side were the guards of the keep and city likely to be on? Could they ask any of them for aid? Or would they gather her up and take her wherever Joffrey was now, and make her kneel at his side as his betrothed? Perhaps… perhaps she could only trust the Hound now.  
  
They were running down a longer corridor, Sansa’s breath escaping her as she tried to keep up with the larger man and his long strides, when the first attack on the keep came. The red light around them suddenly flared greatly, and the windows blew in as the fire tried to get at them. She fell and skidded all the floor on her side, coming to rest against the bottom of the corridor wall. He fell over her, covering her by intention or not, she did not know. But his weight pressed the breath from her, and her lungs were scorched by the fierce heat of the air that she struggled to replace it with.   
  
Eventually they raised themselves, seeing the fire lying all about them on the ground. Some of it was feasting on the blackened corpse of a man, somehow blown in with the blast.  
  
Suddenly the Hound leapt to his feet and struggled to shrug off his olive green cloak, in his distress he shouted loud nonsense at the fire that was spreading there. She grabbed at the length of it and helped drag the cloak from his back, throwing it to the floor.   
  
And then she whimpered, holding her hands out in front of her, staring at the red burns and blisters already forming there.  
  
“Stupid girl!” He grasped her wrists, looking at her palms.  
  
“It’s not, it’s not that bad.” But she sobbed at the pain of it. He reached to his belt and poured liquid from a skin. She cried out, expecting it to be strong red wine. But it was water. And it helped.  
  
“What kind of fucking fool do you think I am?!” He glared down at her, narrowing his eyes in anger. But then he paused. “You shouldn’t have done that, little bird. Your hands!”  
  
“Truly, they are not so very bad.” She held back further tears.  
  
He reached quickly for her skirts, and tore away some of the frail linen underneath before she could protest, wrapping it deftly about her hands. As he did, she looked up at him, taking in the frantic look in his eyes. The Hound was scared. She did not think he was the kind to ever feel fear, but he seemed close to the very edge of panic.  
  
Once he was done, she reached out to touch his hand, bending her agonizing fingers to make slight contact with his. She seemed to surprise him with the motion.   
  
“Thank you.” She said quietly.  
  
The Red Keep shook violently, and he grabbed her by her forearm, dragging her after him.  
  
“Spare your words!”   
  
Dust and dirt rained down on them as the stones of the keep shifted and protested what was happening to them. Sansa remembered suddenly the tales she’d heard of Harrenhal. Greatest of castles and melted to lumpen shapes by dragon fire. The red glow around them was brighter and fiercer by the minute, and sweat clung to her forehead as the temperature rose steeply.  
  
Suddenly he swung her about and into a shadowed archway. There was a banded iron wooden door there. He hammered against it, shoving his shoulder against it and making it jump on its hinges.   
  
“Gods damn you!”   
  
And then he was through, the door swinging back against the wall and then hanging limply. A spiral staircase of stone led downwards into gloom. He led the way, and the deeper that they went, the darker it got.   
  
“Put your hand on my shoulder, little bird. Don’t bloody well fall on me!”  
  
“Can you see?!” She rested her wrist on his armoured shoulder, her covered hand twisted in a clawed shape and of no use for now. It seemed to throb in time to their cautious steps.  
  
“Well enough.” He growled back at her.  
  
A roaring sound scared her and then she did almost stumble against him. But as they walked the final steps down to another corridor and the darkness lightened, turning red again, she realised it was the persistent growl of the sea. They emerged from the darkness to the bright red of fire that heated their disbelieving faces. The burnt out husks of ships were slowly being brought in by the tide, but there were many long ships on the sand that were whole. And the sand had been churned up by thousands of feet.  
  
The Hound began cursing.  
  
“There’s a gods damn army as well!” He rubbed his face with his hand, pushing the sweat, dirt and ash about on it.  
  
But then he was swinging his sword up in an arc that stopped the charge of a man in a strange dark leather armour with coppery scales lain over it. He sliced open his throat and the body fell against a rocky outcrop and slid to the sand. Sansa gasped, he had seemed to appear from nowhere!   
  
Then there were more men in the darkly shining scale armour, three of them circling the Hound and Sansa, and jabbing at them with long spears. Their faces were covered by pointed helms, their eyes fierce and narrowed above their face coverings. The Hound kept their leaf shaped blades away from them both, his greatsword moving faster than Sansa had ever seen as he vented his anger at them. But the men were good warriors, and there were three of them.  
  
Suddenly an intensely loud sound crashed over them all, and they were all thrown down to the sands. Somehow the Hound managed to clamber over the two nearest to him, even as the earth still shook, and drew his dagger across their throats before they could recover. The third got back on his feet and jabbed down with his spear at the Hound, but he twisted and took the man’s feet from him, before slamming the dagger down through that lighter leather armour and taking his life. Then the Hound found his feet again, panting, and grabbing her wrist to make her stand. She followed his wide eyes, looking back at the Red Keep. Back at what remained of the Red Keep.  
  
A jagged edge of red stone still reached up to the night sky, but it overlooked a tumble of stones and mortar that still moved quickly down Aegon’s High Hill towards the sea, throwing white plumes of the sea water up into the air as the avalanche plunged into it. All the great towers had fallen away.  
  
And resting on the rooms which were now open to the night was a darker shape that blocked out the stars above it. It roared in victory and poured fire out into the sky.  
  
The Hound did not move, even though the heat from the dragon fire reached them even, as far away as there were. Sansa looked at him in desperation.   
  
“We have to go!”  
  
“Go where? Where can we go?” He spoke as in a trance.  
  
“To the city gates!” But still he did not move. She gritted her teeth and pulled at his arm with one of her burnt hands, trying not to whimper as the pain flared anew there. “We have to go! Please!”  
  
He looked down at her, a blank expression on his dreadful face. And then he seemed to notice the growing tension about her eyes. “Your hand!” He quickly moved to pull it from him, making her gasp as the pain grew. “You shouldn’t have done that!” He examined the makeshift bandages but seemed happy enough with them.  
  
“We have to go to the city gates!” Sansa begged him as he looked them over.  
  
He nodded this time and then he led the way, sword in hand again, keeping a closer eye on the black shadows of the beach, wary of the night’s ability to cloak the enemy. There were more long boats as they snuck alongside the city walls and came closer to the river gate and the fish markets. But, apart from the four men they’d encountered on the beach there did not seem to be any sentries. Whoever was attacking seemed to be keen to push their attack without concern for protecting their potential escape route. Sansa reasoned that if you had a dragon at your command, perhaps then escape was not a priority. But that also meant that the rest of the attacker’s forces would have moved into the city already!  
  
They saw that the shack like buildings and warehouses of the fishmarket were also ablaze as they drew closer. The path through them would mean walking between lines of fire, although Sansa thought it might be possible. But the Hound immediately turned towards the open entrance of the water gate and carried on walking without pause.  
  
“Perhaps we should go on through the market?!” She called out.  
  
“Fuck that.” His words drifted back on a night’s breeze full of embers and sparks.   
  
“There will be more soldiers in the city!”  
  
“There will be soldiers everywhere, little bird!” He did not look back at her. “It’s a bloody invasion!”  
  
She gritted her teeth and ran to catch up with him, the two of them passing through the Water Gate and into the city. It was all afire.   
  
The roofs and topmost floors of many of the barracks and houses were entirely gone. Men and women, and even small children, were running about, as though movement could keep them safe. A man charged at them, panic all over his face and the Hound cut him down. Sansa shouted at him, but he ignored her, leading her on into the chaos.


	2. With You

For hours, it seemed, they struggled through rubble strewn streets, dodging scale clad soldiers marching in strict formation. The strange men cut down the common folk with their spears if they thought they were being attacked, but mostly they ignored the terrified hordes. What their purpose was, Sansa did not know, but the Hound avoided them nonetheless. Perhaps they were only looking for the knights of Kings Landing, those who might give them a challenge. Men like the Hound.  
  
Sansa was just crawling up and over a fallen wall, following after him, when something grabbed her ankle and she screamed. The Hound was back at her side straight away, grabbing at her and pulling her leg away from the arm that had burst from the rubble and reached for her still. Sansa cried for the poor soul caught there, but the Hound urged her on.  
  
“We can’t do anything for him!” When she still pulled to go back he lifted her bodily and carried her over his shoulder, away from the doomed man.  
  
Finally they reached the King’s Gate, surrounded now by a multitude of refugees. Some had managed to get carts through the mess and the chaos, and had brought their life’s possessions, stacking them so high they might fall off soon. Others had only the clothes they stood in. Sansa wondered what they saw when they looked at her. Just another ragged, shocked, girl in a blood and dirt stained dress. Finally, perhaps, they did not see the traitor’s daughter. She would have given anything for that transformation to not have happened in this awful way!  
  
They were slowly shuffling forward towards the gate, pressed on all sides by the mass of human bodies. The Hound had grabbed her wrist and held it tightly, even when the movement of bodies tried to pull him away from her. A fat man who got between them got the Hound’s fist deep in his belly, and he fell back wheezing as the large warrior took his place at her side again.  
  
Sansa looked up at the gate as they began to move beneath it. And that was when she saw the dark shape blocking out the stars. Every single hair on her head rose as shivers ran through her.  
  
“Sandor!” She screamed.   
  
The crowd reacted then, like a beast driven to stampeding by a storm. As the flames descended on the other side of the gate half the crowd plunged forward, and the other half, the saner half, dashed back towards the houses and manses. Sansa felt his hand ripped from her wrist, and the swell of the people took her towards the new born bonfire on the other side of the gate.   
  
Somehow, the gods only knew how, and with her burnt fingers screaming in agony, she managed to dig the tips of them into a jutting edge of the gate and hold herself against the horde as they pushed and jabbed at her. And then the weight of him was against her, holding her, cradling her and deflecting the blows of bodies flowing against him. She thought… she thought she felt him shaking.  
  
“Close your eyes!”   
  
She did as she was told, but still the red light burned through her eye lids and blazed across her eyes. When she finally opened them again, breathing in the scorched air and the ash and blood smell of him, the ground either side of the gate they were under was pitch black. Piles of twisted and cracked bodies lay there also.  
  
“I said to close your fucking eyes!”   
  
He near picked her up again, holding her against him and moving quickly as the few who had survived the blast under the arch of the thick gate started to stagger and stand up. He ran with her, skirting bodies and ruined buildings, as the flap of the dragon’s wings stirring ash and threw it into their faces. Any moment, she thought, any moment now and the dragon will breathe its fire on us. Any moment now and it will all be over.   
  
But the moment did not come. The black wings passed over them, heading north. To the next gate, she realized.   
  
“Where can we go?!” She looked up at him, pleading with her eyes. He had to know what to do! He had to!  
  
He paused, holding her against a half fallen down wall, breathing deeply.   
  
“I know a place. Might be safe.” He sounded almost reluctant, but they had to go somewhere, anywhere but here.  
  
“Please! Please take us there!”  
  
He nodded mutely before grasping her wrist again, encircling it with his large hand carefully. And then they were running again, but this time deeper into the city on fire.   
  
She lost track of the twisting streets that they moved through, keeping to the darker shadows and the broken walls that made good hiding places. Sometimes between buildings she thought she saw the Great Sept of Baelor, its dome cracked and broken. Sometimes the stars disappeared as the black monster swept over the city again and again, raining down fire and death elsewhere. And sometimes she thought that she would never see another dawn. But then the sky began to lighten in the East.  
  
As the greys of morning began to show more and more of the horrors of the night, he finally brought her to a stop by a tavern. Its higher floors were broken open to the sky, but the ground floor was intact. He forced open the door that had jammed in a now twisted threshold, cursing as he did. And then he was sweeping her inside.  
  
It was dark, and she stumbled over shapes could have been furniture, or rubble… or people. He moved her quickly through the main room and towards the back where a stone archway led to a room full of immense barrels propped up on their sides. He crouched at wooden door set into the stone floor, and heaved at the metal ring set into it. It started to shift, screaming in protest, before he finally opened it. The stone steps led down into pitch blackness and she paused.  
  
“Get down there!”   
  
“What, what is it?”  
  
“There’s nothing down there but bottles and casks! But there’s a fucking dragon outside!”  
  
She stepped quickly down the steps, hearing him move to follow her. But then the earth shook again, a rumbling sound that only grew louder. Something pushed her forward suddenly, and she staggered down the last steps as the weight of the large warrior fell against her. His agonised yell was swallowed by the continuing rumble of the falling upper walls of the tavern.   
  
She lay on the floor, dazed, for a long time.   
  
Then, slowly, painfully, she raised her self, and looked about. But everything was black, and she could not see even her hands before her face. On all fours she crawled back to where she thought the steps had been, fighting back a scream as her red raw hands found his body. She touched his own hands at first, and then, trembling, she felt her way along his arms to his body and then to where the stones had fallen on his legs. He did not move, but she worked her way back to his face and rested her hand there, waiting, praying for his breath. When it came she sobbed in relief.   
  
She started moving what stones and bricks she could away from him, muttering prayers all the while. But some of them where simply too large for her to move. And some made the others shift and rattle against each other in a terrifying way. Did the weight of them go all the way back up to the ground floor of the tavern? In the darkness it was impossible to know for certain. She needed light, and quickly.   
  
Moving away from him she tried to find the nearest wall, the one that the stone steps had sat against. If this was a cellar of good wines and spirits, then surely the walls would be covered with shelves to store them? And the tavern keep would need some way to light this space when he came down to select his wares. The logical thing would be too keep at least a tinder box on a shelf at the bottom of the steps, on a shelf on the near wall.   
  
She found the shelves by crashing her forehead into the lowest one of them, a cry bursting from her lips as lights danced in front her eyes in the dark. Recovering, she slowly used the shelves as the rungs of a ladder to draw herself to a standing position again. Carefully she ran fingertips over the bottles and shelves. It felt as though hours passed before a small box moved under her hands. A small tinder box and next to it the shape of a candle in a holder. She prayed to all the gods in gratitude, and then felt her way through lighting the tinder. It took her a heart breaking number of attempts before the flame finally sprang into life and lit the nearest parts of the dark cellar. Holding her breath she quickly lit the candle and turned with it to look again for Sandor.  
  
The rubble on him did not back up all the way up the stone steps at least. But they pressed heavily on his legs, and she still was not certain she could move them herself. She placed the candle back on the shelf and moved to push at them again. A groan from the man told her she was hurting him.  
  
“I’m so, so sorry, but I have to get them off of you!” She pushed again, ignoring the increasing noise as he woke to his pain and groaned. Her back shrieked at her, and her poor hands protested. She was certain the wetness she felt on them was blood. But the unevenness of the stones helped her to topple them away from him, even if she was panting and perspiring at the effort of it. By the flickering light of the single candle she saw his breeches torn and bloody. But worse still was the deep gash in his thigh. Blood pooled quickly as she removed the stone that had done it.   
  
She ripped at her skirts again, pulling the under shift apart and tying it quickly about him as he tried to move.  
  
“Stay still.” She said softly. “You are hurt!”  
  
He cursed, but his tongue was thick and slowed.   
  
“Your head. Were you hit there?!”  
  
He shook it, his dark hair falling over his face as he raised himself on his arms. But when he pulled his legs underneath him, the left, the wounded one, did not move. Curses flowed again.  
  
She moved to help him to sit up, swinging his leg around carefully as he swore the air blue yet again.  
  
“Is that actually helping?” She asked, snapping, her patience finally at an end.  
  
He paused. “Can’t do any more harm than those fucking stones!”  
  
“It’s a deep wound.”  
  
“Aye” He was gritting his teeth in pain. “Find me some kind of strong spirit-”  
  
“You want to drink?!”  
  
“Gods, yes! But also to clean the fucking wound, girl!”  
  
“I don’t know what to look for!”   
  
“Open a few. Smell them. The first that burns your mind through your nose will be the one.”   
  
He was closing his eyes against the pain, and she moved quickly, taking the candle from the shelf and walking along the lines of bottles. There were so many of them. Some were in thick clay jugs with small stoppers. Others were in green glass bottles. If there was any system she could not make it out. But she did at least find more candles just along a little from where she’d found the tinder.  
  
“Gods, girl! Hurry up!”  
  
She stopped at random bottles, placing the candle by them and pulling the corks from them with awkward and twisted hands. Most smelt of thick rich wine and she ignored those. But then there was a fat bottomed sand coloured jug with a green stopper that had been carved so that a snake’s head came from it. She removed it, forcing her stiffening fingers to grasp it, and took a deep sniff. Almost instantly a headache sprang across her brows as the fumes burnt into her there. Her eyes watered and she coughed.  
  
“That’s the one” He shouted down to her. She cradled the large jug and hefted it from the shelf, bringing it to his side and kneeling by him, moving the candle away. He smelt the air.  
  
“Dovcha. The good stuff as well. This’ll likely only kill half your wits if you drink it.” He hefted the jug and before she could caution him he poured it over his wound, bandage and all. She thought that his scream was sure to bring the dragon down on them, so loud and agonised it was. But the thick walls of the cellar must have contained it. Or the beast had moved on again.  
  
“Gods!” He spat and then lifted the jug to his lips, looking at her over it as he swigged. “Hold out your hands.”   
  
She instantly put them down in her lap, palms up, the instinct to obey too strong. “I don’t think you should-”  
  
He suddenly poured the spirit over them and onto her lap, wetting her filthy dress. Her scream was not as loud as his but it echoed eerily in the black cellar. She sobbed, tears flowing freely.  
  
“The burns are as bad as they’re going to be, water won’t do any more good. But we’ve got to keep infection out of them now.” His voice was soft, and she accepted his greater knowledge, nodding mutely, the pain still roaring through her.  
  
“Drink.” He held the jug up to her lips and she was forced to swallow the liquid. It was fire in a jug and she coughed and spluttered as he returned it to his own lips. She reeled a little as the warmth of it spread down into her belly and through her arms to palms and fingers that throbbed. But the pain soon felt as though it came from some great distance, instead of at the end of her arms.  
  
“More?” He asked with a dark smile. And she nodded.  
  
The second sip was smaller and easier to withstand. The third was easier yet.   
  
Sandor was leaning back against the shelves, his eyelids lowering.  
  
“Maybe you should not fall asleep?” The words felt thick in her mouth.  
  
“Keep me awake, little bird. Chirp and flutter, and keep me with you.”  
  
“What would you have me say?”  
  
“Tell me you forgive me.”  
  
“I do not understand?”  
  
“Forgive me, little bird.” He was drinking again, but his eyes were closed.  
  
“For pouring the dovcha on me?”  
  
“No, for coming to your room.”  
  
“But you rescued me!!”  
  
He kept his eyes closed. “I didn’t bloody well go there for that.” The words leaked out of him slowly.  
  
“What did you come for?” A sick feeling grew in her stomach that wasn’t from the drink. “Was Ser Blount right about what you wanted?!”  
  
He paused, and then the words fell from him, loosened by the spirit.  
  
“I wouldn’t have hurt you. Not like he wanted to. But it was all ending. Fire was coming. Fucking fire was lighting up the bloody night sky. And I just wanted to die looking at something... beautiful. I wanted it to end with you near me. Close enough to touch you. Maybe. I don’t fucking know!” His words were low and he stumbled over them, the spirits and his pain making his voice thick and cracked.  
  
Silence reigned.   
  
Then she broke it.  
  
“But you did take me away. You got me through the keep-”  
  
“Yeah, I got you out of your fucking cage. And I was going to get you through the gate. But then… it’s all fucking over, little bird. So, I brought you here. And not because it’s safe, but because this was a place where I could have you near me, again. Here I could have you and no one else could! Forgive me! I stole you away from one cage of stone and made you another fucking one!” In the slight candle light there was a glimmer of wetness on his cheeks that shocked her.  
  
“Forgive me.” his voice was hoarse, weak.  
  
This man. This warrior. This mess of curse words and wine and blood. This man who’d tossed a cloak to her when all about her had stared at her nakedness. This man who’d told her his greatest secret. This man who’d watched her, silently. This man who she had found herself watching.  
  
She decided.   
  
Careful not to brush against his wounded leg, she moved about on hands and knees to his other side. Then she raised his arm and placed it around herself. The warrior opened his eyes, and looked down at her.  
  
“If it is all ending.” she began. “Then you can look. You can touch. A little.”   
  
A shaking hand moved towards her face and she closed her eyes as his calloused fingers rested slightly on her cheek. And then they were tracing the fuller part of her bottom lip. She felt a whisper of a touch as his fingers moved to her hair.  
  
“So soft.” He said quietly. “Never felt anything so soft.”  
  
She opened her eyes, looking up into the darkness of his as he ran fingers gently over it.  
  
“Wanted to touch it since I first saw you. You were a child. You still are. Shouldn’t be thinking like this. And the King’d have my head. If he’s still got his!”  
  
“What do you think has happened to him?”  
  
“Son of the usurper, grandson of Tywin Lannister who ordered the murder of Elia and her babes? If he’s alive, and they’ve got him? Well, I wouldn’t trade places with the cunt.” He frowned. “Do you care, little bird? It was only yesterday he was having you beaten!”  
  
“I don’t. Truly! I just want to know if I’m free.”  
  
“As free as you can be in this new cage. With me.” His fingers returned to her face. “Blue eyes. Did those eyes ever see me looking at them?”  
  
“Sometimes. I thought you… disliked me.”  
  
“Because I scare you?”  
  
“Yes. Is there any more dovcha left?”  
  
“Am I scaring you now?” He picked up the jug nonetheless and passed it to her lips. She coughed again, wiping it away with her sleeve. He laughed and winced in pain. “What would your septa say if she’d seen that?”   
  
“She’s dead, so very little.”  
  
“Are you scared now?”  
  
“No.” She held her head up proudly, jutting her jaw forward a little. And that was when he kissed her.  
  
His lips were gentler than she’d thought they’d be. Had she thought on them before now?! Perhaps, she had. They were wet from the dovcha which was a strong but clean taste. It was a good taste. It seemed to be a good kiss. Although she only had the one with Joffrey to compare it to. That was not fair, she should not compare them. He did not move his lips as she thought he might. Perhaps he should. Perhaps she should. The dovcha was making her think like this wasn’t it? Oh gods, he had moved away. Did she want him to do it again. Thoughts were buzzing in her mind, but she did not know if they were coming from her or from the jug of spirit that rested between them on his lap.  
  
He drank from it, taking a much larger gulp than before.   
  
“I expected a slap, little bird.”  
  
She held out her hands, showing him the mess of dirty bandages there. He laughed darkly.   
  
“And if your hands were whole?” He seemed cautious, uncertain. “Would you have beaten the brute for taking advantage?”  
  
She had not moved from under his arm, she was as close to him as she had ever been, close enough to stare deep into those storm ridden eyes for as long as she wished. She was still staring when she found herself moving towards him again, this time placing her lips softly on his. She was the one who kissed him this time. And she was the one who moved her lips on his, feeling her way into what she thought was a proper kiss. Her teeth bumped his. His unshaven skin rasped on hers. The scars of his face moved against the smoothness of hers.   
  
And then he pulled away.  
  
“Girl.” There was warning in his voice. Sadness too. He shifted a little, straightening his back.  
  
“What is it?”   
  
“Perhaps… perhaps you should look around the cellar. See what else is down here that could be of use.” He wasn’t looking at her, his eyes dark and enigmatic in the slight light of the candle flame.  
  
She nodded mutely and removed herself from his arm, picking up the candle and slowly walking away from him again. More shelves and more bottles.   
  
 _Did he not like the kiss?_  
  
Some were similar to the dovcha jug.  
  
 _Should I not have kissed him?_  
  
But most were obviously wine bottles.  
  
 _He kissed me first._  
  
There was a dead rat on the floor. She stepped over it.  
  
 _He kissed me first!_  
  
She reached the back wall of the cellar and made her way along the shelves there. Bottles, bottles and more bottles. She followed the back wall until it joined to the far wall and then made her way along there also, holding the candle in front of her carefully. Eventually her path took her back to the stone steps and Sandor. But the candle lit a pool of water on the floor before she reached him. Sansa’s mind struggled to make sense of it. Black water? Black water?! No, not water! Blood!  
  
She flew to his side, putting aside the candle as quickly as she could. The pool had spread widely from his leg. All the while he’d been talking and drinking, he’d been bleeding out!   
  
“Sandor!” but he did not respond, his head slumped forward on his chest.  
  
“No, please! Please!” She pulled at his head with her burnt hands, trying to shake him awake. And when he did not stir she curled herself up at his side, sobbing.  
  
“More dovcha than blood in me now girl.” His voice was so quiet she almost couldn’t hear him. “You have to try and get out. Get out of this cage too, little bird.” He was fading.  
  
She grasped at him, pulling at his mail armour, the tears flowing down her face. And then she stopped, looking up at that face that she’d found so terrifying once. All the rage and anger was gone from him. She kissed him gently on his scars, and then scrambled to her feet.  
  
Yes, he was right, she had to get out. She moved past him, falling to all fours on the rubble as she slipped and slid on her slow path back out of the cellar. There was a tiny darkness at the top where a slight breeze mocked her crawling progress. If she had been Arya she could have slipped through the gap like a rabbit into its hole. But nevertheless she squeezed herself through the narrow hole, praying that the rocks would not dislodge and fall crashing on to him again. He would surely die if that happened, but if she didn’t try, well, then he was certainly doomed anyway.  
  
Scraping the skin from her hips she finally made it through and lay on the stone floor of the back room of the tavern. She gasped for air and ash swirled around her. Ash was everywhere, a light covering that made the room look like it was snowbound in the daylight. She pulled herself to her feet, crying at the pain in her hands and looking back down the hole she’d emerged from.  
  
“Please!” She called down to him. “Please hold on!”   
  
She ran then, dancing past the fallen furniture and stones of the tavern and out onto the street, the ash swirling around her feet like smoke. Outside she turned and twisted as she decided on a path. Sighting the dome of Baelor’s Sept, she headed that way, hoping the gods would bring soldiers across her path. As it was, moments later, she was stopped in her flight by the sharpness of a bank of spearheads. She raised her hands quickly, displaying the redness of her burns unintentionally, the bandages falling away.  
  
One of the men in leather and scale armour stepped forward, never lowering his weapon.  
  
She coughed and prepared her voice, but even so it cracked and broke. “I am Sansa Stark, daughter of Lord Eddard Stark of Winterfell. And I require your aid.”


	3. Redhands

The women scrubbing at her were not gentle. They were ladies of court who’d had the soft comfortable lives that they had known ripped away from them, and they were ready to hate anyone who offered an easy target.  
  
“Your betrothed is dead.” Hissed one of them.  
  
“The dragon made sure of it.” Spat another.  
  
“He was given fire and blood!” Said a third, scrubbing at her skin with a rough cloth.   
  
Sansa did not care. All she thought of as they washed her clean for her audience was of the soldiers bringing Sandor up from the cellar, supporting the weakened man and then tending to him with their battle born skills of healing. They’d stopped the bleeding, even got him speaking again, or at least cursing at them. And all the while the man had looked to her as she stood within her armed guard. He’d looked furious. As though she’d betrayed him. Perhaps he would have rather died down in that cage of stone then see her surrender to the soldiers. Perhaps. But she did not want that.  
  
And now she was being dried and dressed in an equally rough way to how they bathed her. It was a small silken thing they put her in, far more revealing than she’d ever worn before, in some foreign style she did not recognise that bared her back and displayed more of her chest than she liked. And then more of those dark skinned soldiers came for her, surrounding her as she walked, taking her towards the shattered great hall.   
  
She was made to stand with a row of minor lords and ladies at the back who wept and despaired, wringing their hands. Sansa did nothing of the kind, even if her ruined hands would allow her. She stood tall, straight backed, and waited.  
  
Finally, the Targaryen made his grand entrance.  
  
He was tall and thin, dressed in fine purples and golds. His hair was near white, as she’d heard Targaryen hair could be. And when he ascended the iron throne the head of the great black dragon snaked into the hall and hovered protectively over him , through the roof of the great hall, cracked open like an egg. The crowd’s wailing grew louder yet at the sight of the creature.   
  
However Sansa studied the dragon, detached and numb as her fate scanned the hall, twisting its great neck and hissing. Its scales were black, in some places as black as pitch. Its eyes were a hellish red. And waves of an intense heat came from its maw as it simply breathed. Even at the distance she was from the beast she felt it washing over her and stirring her silks. That was when she finally noticed the large black scorch mark on the tiles of the hall, just in front of the iron throne itself, the stonework bubbled and melted there.  
  
And now two scaled soldiers were dragging Sandor Clegane to that mark! They let him fall to the ground, not caring that he was unable to stand on his wounded leg, and Sansa held back a cry for him as he lay there not moving.  
  
The Targaryen gestured idly and four guards walked two other men towards him. She recognised the plump and bald figure of Varys immediately, but Petyr Baelish’s ragged form was less immediately recognisable. But there was something about the smudged ash on his face and the poor clothes he wore that looked… artful. Had he tried to disguise himself in order to escape the city?  
  
Both were bound, Varys with his hands in front of him, and Lord Baelish with his hands behind him. They were brought to stand beside the throne by the soldiers, and for a moment, with his manacles behind him, it almost looked as though Lord Baelish was simply acting as a King’s advisor. And then Sansa realised that that was exactly what both of the men were doing!  
  
“Who is this?” Asked the Targaryen in a bored tone. Sansa shivered. He sounded so much like Joffrey, with his high reedy voice. All hail the new king, she thought darkly, same as the old king.  
  
“Sandor Clegane, your Grace” said Varys. “Known as the Hound.”  
  
“Clegane?” the thin king sat forward. “The Mountain’s brother?”  
  
“His… little brother.” said Lord Baelish with an odd relish.  
  
“Indeed. Well, until we find the other Clegane, this one will do. Kill him.” The new king waved a hand and the dragon reared back, taking in a breath!   
  
“No!” She screamed and pushed her way past the bleating lords and fell down at his side, her hands hitting the floor and forcing a groan of pain from her. She covered him over with her body and closed her eyes, waiting for the flames to devour them both. He muttered something, his voice wane and cracking, but she could not hear him over the beating of her heart in her ears as she waited for her death by dragonflame.  
  
“Wait! Who is this girl?!”  
  
“Sansa Stark, your Grace. Eddard Stark’s daughter. A valuable hostage as you move against the King in the North.” Varys said in that slippy voice of his. Sansa heard a dark laugh from the new king, and her blood froze in her veins. But she kept her eyes closed, kept her forehead pressed against Sandor’s.  
  
“No! I need no hostages you fool eunuch! I have a dragon! And burning a Stark and a Clegane in one move will be almost as pleasing as setting fire to that mewling false king and his whore mother was!”  
  
“My lord! Wait!” A woman’s voice, high and uncertain, interrupted him, and Sansa looked to see who had been rash enough to stand against the dragonking.  
  
In the shadows of the iron throne she saw a pale figure, her hair as white as the king’s but so long that it almost touched the flagstones, forming a shimmering cloak of her own. She wore a blue silk dress in a similar style to Sansa, but hers was fitted loosely over a belly huge with child.   
  
She stepped forward into the light of the torches and Sansa saw a man shadowing her. A Westerosi by his armour, the only of the King’s invading forces to wear it. A Northerner too by his look, the hair he had left was dark and thick.  
  
“Yes, what is it?!” snapped Viserys.  
  
“My king, I would see this Stark girl. This niece to Lyanna Stark! This wolfbitch!” The uncertainty was replaced with bile, and Sansa found herself afraid again.  
  
Viserys looked as though he had been struck, before considering Sansa properly for the first time. “Of course. I had not thought…”  
  
His queen took his offered hand, leaving her shadow behind, and the two dragons circled Sansa and Sandor, ignoring him and looking her all over as she lay on the floor.  
  
“She does not have her look. Was Lyanna not dark?” asked Viserys.  
  
“If I may, your Grace? She takes after her mother, a Tully.” That was Lord Baelish, and Viserys snorted, a mocking noise which Sansa did not understand.  
  
“A Tully. Traitors all!” sneered the king.  
  
“Stand, girl.” said his queen, imperiously, and Sansa did as she was told. “Do you know who I am?”  
  
There was only one person she could be. “Daenerys Targaryen.”  
  
“Queen Daenerys!” snapped Viserys and Sansa curtsied, as low as she could go, ignoring all the aches and pains of her body and the difficulty of getting her fingers to grasp her skirts.   
  
“Bring a torch closer!” the queen called, and a scaled soldier brought one immediately for her. She looked Sansa over, under the flickering firelight.  
  
“What was it about the Stark blood that attracted our brother? I see nothing special about this one. Although… perhaps… in the torch’s light does her hair not flicker like flames, Viserys?” She passed the torch to him, returning a gentle hand to the immense swell of her belly. She seemed very far gone to Sansa. And then she was forcefully struck by the realisation that the Targaryen dynasty was beginning again.  
  
The king looked at her by the firelight, Sansa squinting at the brightness of it.  
  
“Is she a maid, Baelish?” He called back to manacled men by the throne.  
  
“She was the King’s betrothed, but not yet wed to him. Although… she was found with the Hound, your Grace.”  
  
“Indeed. And we saw how she protected him.” Suddenly he grabbed at her between her legs, hurting her there, and hissing with his face in hers. “Are you unbroken, girl?!”  
Sandor moved to get up, “She hasn’t even bled yet, you fuckin-!” He was silenced by a nearby guard, who shoved the butt of his spear into his thigh, pushing him yelling to the floor again.  
  
“Not even a woman yet? Well, she certainly looks old enough to me! Have her brought to my rooms!”  
  
Sandor struggled up again, receiving the same blow, falling once again. Pain silenced him, and Sansa wished she could tell him to be brave.  
  
The dragonqueen rested a hand on her mate’s arm. “Let me prepare her. She is filthy from protecting her dog!”  
  
“Very well, take her to your rooms. And take the man to the kennels! That’s the correct place for a dog!” He leered at Sansa. “If you please me well, I may even spare your scarred guardian. For a little while, perhaps!” He strode back to the iron throne, taking his seat with a flourish.  
  
Sansa shuddered, her eyes closed as her fate flashed before her eyes. But she would not cry. The queen’s hand was on her arm, and she gently led Sansa from the throne room as guards dragged Sandor along the stone floor by his arms, ignoring his angry shouting and cursing.  
  
***  
  
Sansa walked silently with the queen, following her to the chambers in the lower parts of the Keep that had been cleared for her after the attack. She kept her head down and her burnt hands limp at her sides. The heavy steps of the Westerosi man followed them closely, and she began to think she might know who he was. Jorah Mormont, exiled by her father for selling men instead of sending them to the Wall for their crimes. She had no friend in the Northern man, once a bannerman but now loyal to the Targaryen King.  
  
In the simple rooms the queen sat on the bed and had Sansa stand in front of her, looking her over as the exiled knight guarded the door outside. She should have been terrified, knowing what she was expected to do this night, but she felt a strange determination. Even if it meant her going to the white haired king every night, she would try to please him enough to keep Sandor alive. Even if her hands hurt and her heart broke. She’d been promised to a monster before the Blackwater had burned with dragon fire. Really, nothing had changed.  
  
“Forgive me.”  
  
She started at the young woman’s words. She had almost forgotten that the queen was there.  
  
“Your Grace?” How quickly she adjusted to the courtesies expected of her. Perhaps it was that this queen was not so very different from the past one and Sansa had quickly fallen into her old ways of answering. Or was she? What did the dragonqueen mean by asking for Sansa’s forgiveness? And how strange that she had used Sandor’s own words from the stone cellar. Sansa tried not to think of him, but failed.  
  
“I thought to help you, but I fear I have been very cruel indeed.” Daenerys rubbed a hand absentmindedly over her swollen belly. “Perhaps a quick death by dragonfire in the arms of… perhaps a quick death might have been better for you than surrendering to Viserys.”  
  
“I am honoured by his Grace’s attentions.” The words learnt in Joffrey’s presence came from her mouth before she had fully thought through what the queen might feel about her being the object of her lord’s attentions this night.  
  
“You’ve had time a-plenty to practice that falseness, Lady Sansa. You were betrothed to the usurper’s heir, were you not?”  
  
Sansa nodded.  
  
“And Varys has told me much of the Baratheons. Some of it might have been made to curry favour with his new King. But I suspect a lady who chose to leave the Keep with her betrothed’s swornshield might have had her reasons for not staying by her King’s side when his doom came. Tell me of Joffrey Baratheon.”  
  
Sansa paused, and then spoke the truth. “He was a monster. He had me beaten. He had my father executed after he had promised to send him to the Wall.”  
  
The queen nodded. “As I thought. And his Hound? What manner of man is he? Is he a dog to be sent to the kennels as Viserys says?”  
  
“No!” She corrected herself quickly. “No, your Grace. He protected me in the city.”  
  
“As he protected you in the Keep, I think?”  
  
“Yes” She said quietly.  
  
Daenerys nodded and looked about the room. “I wonder how many men have stood between kings and their women in this Keep.” She shivered. “Do you have brothers, Lady Sansa? There is the so-called King in the North is there not?”  
  
“Yes, that is Robb. And I have two more brothers, Bran and Rickon. And a natural born brother, Jon Snow.” She added her half-brother more easily to the list than she ever had before. Perhaps it was the closeness of death now that made her less resilient, less inclined to adhere to the ways things had been. Dragonfire had scourged all of that away, leading her on a path to a different King’s bed than the one she had expected. It had led her to kiss the Hound, and to try to protect him.  
  
“Have any of your brothers ever hurt you?” The queen asked plainly.  
  
“Hurt me? No, never!”  
  
“My brother hurts me. And he will hurt you once he has you alone. He says I wake the dragon, and whatever you do to try to please him, one day you will do too. And then you, or your Hound, will be punished for your actions.”  
  
She stood, awkward with the extra weight she was carrying, and Sansa reached quickly to help her up.  
  
“Thank you, Lady Sansa. Perhaps in another life we could have been allies. But now I must prepare you for my brother.”  
  
She walked to a dresser where a small array of personal effects lay.  
  
“I could send for maids, but I feel I owe you this much. I should remember how lovely you were before he got a hold of you. That will be punishment enough for me, remembering you as you were.”  
  
Sansa closed her eyes as the young woman ran the brush through her hair, tears forming at her eyes. But she refused to let them flow.  
  
“Tell me true, Sansa. What do you feel for your Hound?” She was undoing Sansa’s dress, letting it fall to the ground, and Sansa did not cover her nakedness. What did it matter now?   
  
“Did it start with his kindness and his warmth?” Daenerys asked lightly as she stood close to Sansa, smelling of sweet flowers and spices.  
  
“No. He is not a kind man. Nor warm.”  
  
“But he must have done something. Some look, some touch… something to make you run with him when Rhaegon came in the night?”  
  
Daenerys fetched a dress from her own closet and helped Sansa get it over her head. It was even more elaborate than the one before it, embroidered dragons fighting over it in gold and red threads on the blue silk. She tied it about with wide ribbons, drawing in the extra material in an artful way.  
  
“He was honest, when none else were. And when the fire came he wanted me to come with him. And I wanted to go with him.”  
  
Daenerys nodded, moving her hands to Sansa’s hair, playing with having it up or down. She sighed deeply, some melancholy getting a hold of her.  
  
“When I was a small girl, in our house with the red door in Braavos, we played games of hide and seek, my brother and I. And once he did not find me for hours!” She laughed, but then bitterness was in her voice. “Because he had found something better to play with. They were meant to be mine, those three scaled eggs. When I was not even a woman he finally found a way to wake them, with help from dark warlocks. I lost several maids that year, never to be seen again. The eggs were meant to be mine, a gift for my wedding day, said Illyrio before Viserys killed him. And later, when Jorah heard of the dragons and of our marriage, he came to swear fealty to my brother, who made him my sole Queensguard.”  
  
She paused. “You look lovely with your hair down, but I think some ornamentation will please him. If you release your fiery hair for him at just the right moment.” She moved to the dresser and came back with a long, ornate, gold hair pin, which she pushed through a gathering of Sansa’s hair before continuing her story.  
  
"One day my brother flew away with all three dragons. Rhaegon the black, Viserion the green, Aerysion the white. He was gone for a month, and when he returned he flew only Rhaegon. My dragon, and the dragon promised to my future child were gone. Sold for an army of Unsullied soldiers and a fleet of ships. Sold to buy the Iron Throne.”  
  
She studied her handiwork. “They were meant to be mine, Sansa. And Jorah. He was meant to be mine too.”  
  
Sansa looked at the queen in shock. What was she saying?  
  
Daenerys rubbed her belly again. “Jorah.” She called towards the door, and the older Northern man entered the room. Sansa looked at him more closely this time. He was a large man, balding a little and hairy in the Northern way. But she saw now that when he looked at his queen his eyes were soft and warm.  
  
“You will be Viserys’ too, until he tires of you. Forgive me Sansa. I have been so terribly cruel to you. And I will be crueller still, perhaps.” She turned to Jorah. “Take her to him, but go via the kennels. Let her see her Hound before she goes to the King.”  
  
Sansa gasped and took the silver haired woman’s hands in her own, ignoring the pain.  
  
“Thank you!”  
  
“Do not thank me. It would have been kinder to have let you burn, Sansa. I will try to sleep now Jorah. Return to your post after you have taken care of her. I will await your return.” She spoke softly, and Sansa felt there were unspoken words there too.  
  
Jorah bowed, and ushered Sansa from the room, walking with her towards the kennels.   
  
Sansa did not know what to say to this man. If things had gone differently for them both she might have met him as a bannerman at some event at Winterfell, a wedding, or a feast, and she would have passed brief pleasantries with the man. But here, in the dark and echoing lower halls of the ruined Keep she did not know what to say the dragonqueen’s guard.  
  
Finally they reached the kennels. Sansa had never been there before, and she was surprised at how ornate the stone buildings were for the King’s hunting dogs, and how they were almost untouched by dragon fire. They found him in a dark corner, the dogs either sniffing around him or lying by him. He was a shattered shadow of himself, his head bowed, hair fallen over his dirty and burnt face. But he looked up as they entered.  
  
“Be careful of your dress Lady Sansa.” said Jorah, not unkindly. He was right of course, she could not risk angering the King by appearing in his presence in soiled silks. She hung back even though she ached to go to Sandor.  
  
“What in the seven hells?! What are you doing here?!” his eyes went to Jorah and he spat. “Mormont!”  
  
“Hound. You have the queen’s generosity to thank.”  
  
“She’s generous indeed, to offer up an unbled child to her brother!” He growled. “I know what she was about, Mormont! ‘Hair like fire’ was it?! The fucking Targ whore!”  
  
Mormont pulled his sword from his scabbard and Sandor smiled. “Fucking well kill me bear! I’d rather be dead than know she’s being hurt by him!”  
  
“Sandor!”  
  
He looked up at her, and she saw the filth on his face, but also the deep sadness in him. “If you get a chance of it too, you’d best kill yourself too rather than go to him, Sansa!  
  
Jorah touched her arm then.   
  
“Not yet!” She moved as though to go to him, even though she knew she shouldn’t, and the exiled knight pulled her back.   
  
“The King won’t be pleased if you smell of the dogs!”  
  
Sandor laughed bleakly and Sansa felt tears in her eyes again.  
  
“Don’t cry for me. It’s not so bad here, little bird. The dogs and I get on well enough. And I’d rather be here than in that nest of dragonspawn.” He looked at Jorah then, his eyes vulnerable but fierce. “Your king is going to hurt her isn’t he?”  
  
Jorah nodded and Sandor swore long and hard, beating his fists again and again against the straw covered floor. “If I had a working fucking leg I’d kill every single one of you! You have my word, and I don’t give it on fucking much!”  
  
“Come now, Lady Sansa.”   
  
Jorah pulled her away, and as she left she heard Sandor’s last, agonised, words, but she could not bear to look back at him.   
  
 _“Little bird…”_  
  
However, the weight of them came with her, and it was all that she could do not to weep aloud, an ache building in her stomach as it flipped and sickened. But she would not cry, she would not give the new king the satisfaction. But when Jorah spoke again, when they were alone in a corridor, she found it ever harder not to.  
  
“'Little bird', is it? I never thought to hear the infamous Hound, of all men, speak softly to a woman. But love breaks all of us in the end.”  
  
His words affected her deeply, but also made her think. She looked up at him, and gathered her courage.  
  
“Is it a dragon the queen carries? Or a bear?”  
  
Sansa gasped as the older man pushed her against the wall roughly. “You will never say that again!”   
  
She nodded, eyes wide, and the man released her. But then he leant close and whispered feverishly to her.  
  
“He would kill her if he even suspected it!”  
  
“He will know, surely, when it is born?!”  
  
“It can’t be mine, it can’t! We were together only a few times, while he flew his dragons away to sell them for men and ships.” He seemed to be trying to convince himself more than her.  
  
“She looks near her time.”  
  
She watched him rub his face, a gesture she had seen Sandor do so many times when he was concerned or in a state of consternation. How strange it was that another woman had also found… something precious to her… with a man sworn to her King and husband. At least Sansa had never had to go to Joffrey’s bed. But that was little comfort now, as Jorah took her arm firmly and led her to Viserys’ room.  
  
They reached his chambers and Jorah knocked at the door, before taking her in.  
  
Viserys was in a thick embroidered gown, open at his chest which was hairless and pale. He was pouring a golden goblet of wine as they entered.  
  
“Good. Jorah, take the door, I don’t want to be disturbed.”  
  
“But Daenerys-”  
  
“I am your king, not her!!” He spat out the words. “And leave your sword over there by the fireplace! I have some ideas on how to deal with this niece of Lyanna Stark.”   
  
Sansa looked into his violet eyes and saw only madness. A mad king with a dragon. How history turned back on itself like a worm!  
  
Jorah nodded stiffly, his face grim as he walked past the King to set his blade at the fireplace as requested. He closed door behind him as he left.   
  
Viserys’ eyes crawled over her and he smiled vilely.  
  
“So now I will get to see what was so good about Stark cunt that my brother ruined the kingdoms for it!-”  
  
It happened so quickly Sansa had not enough time to even scream.   
  
The door flew back open, and Jorah took several quick steps back to Sansa, grabbing at something in her hair, ripping it from her and swinging it to push it deep into Viserys’ throat. Blood bubbled up immediately, turning his scream into a gargling nonsense as Jorah stood over him, shaking.  
  
Sansa sank to her knees at the same time as the dying King, who held hands to his throat and the hairpin embedded there, just as she held hands to her wide opened mouth, her hair drifting back down over her shoulders. As his life fled from him, Jorah knelt over Viserys and pulled the pin out. He stared at in his hand, the blood covering him from fingertip to wrist, turning his hands red. Sansa breathed heavily, trying to calm herself as the knight babbled.  
  
“I had to. I had to! Its mine! It has to be my child! Do you see, I had to do it?!” He looked at her with despair and fear in his eyes. She nodded, fighting the urge to be sick.  
But once it had passed, she breathed deeply before getting to her feet, trembling, but now with a strong determination. It was clear to her what she had to do. It was as though the idea had sprung into her mind fully grown.   
  
“Give it to me.”  
  
Jorah looked up at her, broken and lost.  
  
“She would tell you the same. Give it to me.”  
  
He handed her the bloody pin and Sansa bobbed down to cover her burnt hands over in the King’s blood, her stomach heaving as she did, a dark pain growing there, and lower, as her body rebelled.  
  
“I killed him. He was going to rape me and I killed him.” She said coldly.  
  
“But why pretend?!”  
  
“Can she control the dragon?”  
  
“I don’t know!”  
  
Sansa nodded, before adding, quietly. “They’ll never bow to her.”  
  
“What are you saying?”  
  
Sansa took a deep breath, steeling herself to speak. Knowing that she could do this. She was a Stark of Winterfell.  
  
“The people. The lords that are left. They’ll find a way to capture the dragon while the Targaryen forces are confused and headless rather than let her take the Iron Throne by killing her brother. And believe me well, they’ll see her will in your actions, even if you don’t go to her yet. Even if they never suspect that it’s your child you were protecting. They’ll see her as just another insane Targaryen, and they will not stand for it again. Not after he burnt the city.” She paused. The next step was so clear to her, even if she was afraid of what it would mean.   
  
“But they might follow a Stark.” She said finally.  
  
He looked at her with something like a fearful awe. “Where did you learn to think this way?”  
  
“Here, Ser Mormont, I learnt it right here in the Red Keep.”   
  
She remembered then how her mother spoke to servants, gentle, but firm. With no space for refusal. “Now, listen to me. You will have Sandor Clegane bathed and cared for by a maester. You will have someone fetch Varys and Lord Baelish, and any other lords of note still in the Keep, to this room. And you will personally bring Daenerys Targaryen here. But first of all, you will wash the blood from your hands.”  
  
Jorah nodded, moving quickly to a washbasin and starting at it.  
  
When his back was to her she sagged slightly, letting the mask drop for but a moment, fighting the tremors in her red hands, still gripping onto the hair pin. She ached all over, her belly rolling. And she felt as though she might faint. But she could do this. She could do this. She had to do this!  
  
***  
  
The next six days had been question after question, decision after decision. She’d gathered grey heads and lords around her even though she was repelled by some of them. Varys and Baelish in particular were necessary, there was so much she did not know. They formed her extremely small, Small Council, but she trusted neither of them. The only man she did trust she had not had the time to even visit. Between making decisions, one after the other in a seemingly never ending cascade, she had gone out into the city, to be seen by the people. Showing them that they were ruled again. Telling them they were safe now. Affirming that one dragon was dead, and that the two others were hostages. One in chains in the reopened dragon pit, and the other in a secret chamber in the Keep. With Ser Jorah.  
  
Lord Baelish was bringing up the subject of Daenerys again this morn, as the new Grandmaester, Finlin, inspected her hands and rubbed new ointments on them. Sansa kept one ear open to Littlefinger, but her eyes on the new raven missives on her desk.  
  
“You cannot leave her alive!”  
  
“I can and I will.” She channelled her mother’s stern voice at moments like this, and oddly enough it seemed particularly potent when she tried it on Baelish. “I need her to have her baby and to show the people that it is not a Targaryen.”  
  
“Why not kill them both and be done with it all?”  
  
She looked up at him, arching a Tully eyebrow, but putting Stark steel into her voice. “I have made my decision. You are excused.”  
  
Baelish left muttering. He was a dangerous man to cross. But she could not do what she believed was right without crossing some of those so called counsellors. She chose to rule now because the people needed her, but she also knew well that she was allowed rule because those lords let her. A pretty little queen, they must have thought at first, so different from the blood and fire of the dragons, and that increasingly worrisome Baratheon boy. But they also feared the little queen even as she looked good in a fine gown and eased the people’s hearts with her speeches about rebuilding and restoring the city.   
  
After all, she had killed the dragon with just a hair pin.   
  
She winced as the Grandmaester, a balding man in his fifties, manipulated her hands, pushing the grease into them. “You have to work them every day to make them supple once more.” He said.  
  
“Will they heal?”  
  
His voice made her jump, and she saw him by the doorway, shadows on him in the dark of the evening. Of course, she had told her newly formed Queensguard to allow him into her presence as soon as he was able to visit. But she was still surprised at his unannounced presence.  
  
“They are already healing.” The Grandmaester and the Hound were well acquainted by now and he did not even try to refer to the warrior as ‘my lord’. Sansa saw the crutch the Hound was using as he limped into the room and her heart ached for him. “There will be some loss in flexibility. But if she keeps working at the skin every day, using the ointments, the scarring should not stop her writing, or playing the harp. Embroidery, and such finer skills, may be difficult.”  
  
“I find I have little time for it now anyway. Thank you, Grandmaester.” The man bowed and left.   
  
They were alone together.  
  
“Please, sit.”  
  
“I’ll stand. Where is Stranger?!” He was short with her, snapping out the words.  
  
Sansa sighed, he had found out. But Varys had told her his new little birds had seen him preparing to leave. And she couldn’t let him.  
  
“Very well. There are other horses. But don’t think that you can keep me here! This ain’t my fucking cage!” He was furious, and she fought back her usual fear of him.  
  
“Stannis sues for peace.”  
  
He paused in his rant, the new information distracting him for a moment.  
  
“Of course he bloody does, you have a fucking dragon!” He sat down after all, taking a place at the hearth. She joined him, conscious of the rich, thick brocade she wore when he was just in a rough tunic and breeches. At least they had not made her a crown. Yet.   
  
“A dragon that I can’t control, and that Dany could only calm just enough to chain him in the pit.”  
  
“Stannis doesn’t know that. What are his terms of peace?”  
  
“A wedding, for a start.” She had to do this, she had to get him involved before he left her for good.  
  
“The fucking idiot’s married already, or does he not realise?!”  
  
“Shireen to Rickon, when they are of age.”  
  
Sandor paused. “It makes sense.”  
  
“Robb is marching South.”  
  
“And he’ll want to wed you to a Tyrell or a Martell! I was right! You clawed your way out from one cage of stone right back into the one you left behind! Its bigger and grander, and they call you ‘your Grace’ now, but it’s still a fucking cage!”  
  
“I did what had to be done.”   
  
She felt the intensity of his stare and once she might have trembled beneath it, but she had steel in her now, forged in fire and blood. Even if her heart felt as though it might break at the look he gave her.  
  
“They called you Kingslayer for a bit. That didn’t fucking stick, there still being one out there somewhere. Then they called you Dragonslayer. Romantic, but bloody nonsense. The Targ was just a man, they all were, the whole fucking lot of them. But do you know what they call you now?”  
  
She shook her head, fighting back the desire to weep.  
  
“'Queen Redhands'.” He leant forward, grabbing her wrists and forcefully turning her hands over to show her scars. “And it’s not just for these damned scars. I never thought you would do that- not you! It would have been better that you’d fucking killed yourself-” A great sadness seemed to fall on him. “I have to leave, girl. I can’t stay here and watch you play this game!”  
  
“What game?!”  
  
“Cersei, the cold bitch, used to call it the ‘Game of Thrones’. She’d say, you win or you die. Usually before she killed the player. Well, she was fucking wrong! Even if you win, you die. Robert liked beer and women, and they made him play till he won. Then he died. Joffrey was a worse player than he thought himself to be. But he won. Then he died. The Targ played with a fucking dragon on his side. Then he died! I’ll not stay here and watch them manoeuvre their way behind you so they can slip a knife between your ribs. And I’ll not stay here and watch those hands get redder and redder as you play!”  
  
“I have to help the people! They need a leader who cares-”  
  
“Fuck’em! Those people spat at you when you were the traitor’s daughter. They trampled on you like they did all the rest when the fire came. You think they love you now because you killed a fucking dragon-” he barked the words out, moving to stand.  
  
“I didn’t! I didn’t kill him!” She cried out, then covering her mouth with those red hands as though she could take the words back. But the secret had been burning in her.  
  
“Sansa?!”  
  
“It was Jorah! Because of the baby… his baby!”  
  
“So that’s why you haven’t taken her head?!” He said in realisation.  
  
“Did you really think that I could?!” She did cry then, letting out all the sorrow that had been building since she’d taken the hairpin from Jorah’s hands, tears streaming down her face. Then he was on his knee in front of her, seemingly not caring that his leg pained him. She leant forward and wept onto his shoulder.  
  
“I thought I’d lost you, little bird. I thought you’d become like them! Like me!”  
  
She moved away from him, stifling the tears. “My brother is marching South. When he arrives, I will be giving over the gods damned throne to him! I might have wanted to be queen once, but not now!”  
  
He laughed darkly at her language, moving his hand to rest on the arms of her chair, his body forming a wall around her. “You, cursing?! Maybe you have changed after all.”  
  
“I have.” She lay her hands lightly over his. “I’m not the same child I was. I’m a woman grown now.” He looked at her intently, and she leant forward to kiss him, hoping he understood her meaning. The ache and sickness in her stomach had been the signs of her first moonblood. It had come the night she was meant to lie with Viserys, during the panic and confusion after his horrific death was announced and her court of bewildered and ambitious men was hastily put together. The night she would have done anything to save his life.   
  
He seemed surprised, but then kissed her back, moving his hands to her waist. He still knelt there before her no matter how painful it was, showing his confused passion for her in the soft movement of his lips with hers. Eventually she pulled away from the kiss and used her stiff fingers to move strands of hair from his face, gently touching his burn scars with her own.  
  
“You’re right, they do want me to wed. Tyrell or Martell, either will do. And they would still have made me even if I was not Queen in the South for this short time.”  
  
“I won’t bloody let them.” He growled.  
  
She paused. She had to tell him all of it. Even if he was set not to like it all.  
  
“I have some power now, during this reign of mere days and weeks. And I have to use it to set things right. I have to do the things that Robb may not do when he is King, because they are not the most strategic thing to do, even if they are the right thing.” He went to speak, but she halted him.  
  
“Please, let me tell you. I have to tell you. First, I am sending Daenerys and Jorah to the North once the baby is here. He will take her into exile on Bear Island. Rhaegon will go with them, and once they are there Jorah has sworn to clip his wings for good. No ship can carry him, so he’ll be bound there for the rest of his life. However long it is that dragons live.”  
  
“You trust Mormont?!” His brow furrowed and Sansa fought the urge to kiss away the lines there.  
  
“I trust that he wants a life with Daenerys and his child. A life away from that ‘Game of Thrones’ you described.”  
  
“What else are you using this brief reign for?”  
  
“I’m making you a lord-”  
  
“Bugger that!”  
  
“Sandor.” He looked into her eyes as he heard his name on her lips. “I’m making you Warden of the West, Lord of Casterley Rock. The papers are written up. Robb wants Tywin Lannister out of the way, and this will cut off his money and his power. The throne will send men to help you with your claim.”  
  
“I don’t want the fucking Lannister lands!”  
  
“Robb needs a loyal man in the West.”  
  
“I doubt he bloody well thinks of me as his man.”  
  
“But I do. And as Warden you will need to be wed.”  
  
“Sansa! I won’t! I don’t care how fucking ‘strategic’ it might be-”  
  
“All we have are these cages of stone, my love. But I want one where I can see you, have you near. Touch you, if you’ll allow it. Wed me Sandor, and share my cage? I am still your little bird. If you’ll have me?”  
  
Her words sunk in, and he stared at her in surprise. Then he drew her into his arms again, kissing her deeply. “You bloody fool!” he growled against her mouth. “I’m already yours!”   
  
And then she knew that even if she gave up the Iron Throne she was still  _his_ queen.


End file.
